Tragic Hero: THE INTERNET’S OWN BOY

By Jamie Brenner
| July 5, 2014 at 9:00 am

I’ve had a long fascination with the rebel hero who meets with a tragic end. It started with Matt Dillon as Dallas in the movie version of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders. The hero of my latest novel, Ruin Me, is a law-breaking street artist. But as we all know, truth is stranger – and more devastating – than fiction. This week, there’s a new documentary called THE INTERNET’S OWN BOY about programming genius, activist, and anti-hero, Aaron Swartz, co-founder of Reddit. Under the weight of outrageous felony indictments charged to make an example of him, he killed himself last year at the age of 26 — but not before instigating changes that help all of us every time we blog or search the internet. Check out this trailer.